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12 June 2011

Auckland Eats - Kokako Cafe

I have been to Kokako Cafe a few times now as it is one of my favourite places for brunch. Despite now being officially Winter in NZ we are still getting sunny 20C days, I am loving this winter, with the exception of pesky mosquitoes. Their voracious appetite for me the price I have to pay for a milder winter.

Kokako is a locally owned fair trade organic coffee roaster and they have a cafe in Parnell serving lots of delicious, mainly organic locally sourced vegetarian fare. Very retro 1960s design books hold the menu and a nice touch is the home made organic ketchup along with the usual condiments on each table.

The coffee is great, I put it up there with my favourite coffee tipple All Press. Rich and dark, with a nice crema and served with water on the side as it should. It also comes in very cute looking retro green cup.

I love the menu, which changes every now and then. It is most definitely one of the more interesting menus. On offer last weekend a Tofu Salad - grilled tofu with oven dried tomatoes, marinated artichokes, crushed olives Spanish onion, roasted cauliflower, pine nuts and rocket or Herb and Lentil Cakes - roasted baby beets, herb lentil cakes, yoghurt and mint dressing and watercress with preserved lemon.

I was torn between the Haloumi Salad and the Potato Blini. The Haloumi Salad with warm chilli haloumi polenta salad with courgettes, cherry tomatoes, roasted onion, grilled aubergine and an avocado oil dressing sounded quite divine, it was however the Potato Blini that won out in the end. A light puffy potato pancake with oven dried tomatoes, chunky avocado and a Clevedon Valley Buffalo Mozarella and rocket salad.

The potato pancake was light and fluffy, the oven dried tomatoes sweet and rich against the creamy avocado. And to top it all off the wonderful milky, creamy Clevedon Valley Buffalo Mozarella with the peppery rocket.

And as a little treat one of their berry smoothies, These are made with organic bush honey yoghurt and organic milk and are delicious. They are full of berry flavour with a hint of the honey and served in a jam jar, another lovely touch.

So if you happen to be wanting somewhere for brunch that is a little different from the usual fare and most importantly delicious check out Kokako.

5 comments:

I tried to visit Kokako when I was in Auckland for the day last October! Unfortunately a combination of me being over-ambitious, poor big-city navigation skills, and Auckland traffic prevented it from happening. Still top of my must-visit list for next time - glad to hear it lives up to it reputation. :-)

How lovely! I'm always looking for a good place for brunch. I live on the Shore and hate driving so I rarely can be bothered going over the bridge, but I've had the Kokako Cafe recommended to me a couple of times so I guess I have to visit since I'm almost on uni holidays..